“Why should any of that be softened? None of it is pretty. It takes more than a few blows on a face for skin to give way to bones and viscera. When gunshots end a life, bones shatter, blood pools, the dying cry out. I don’t want the impact squeegeed away. Revenge, and justice, is too often written in pain. I don’t want Hollywood to clean up the mess. I don’t want it to silence the screams.” – Betsy Sharkey in Movie violence must not be stopped [via latimes.com]

27 Responses to Quote of the Day: Hooray for Hollywood Edition

It actually takes precious little to beat a person to death, even without hitting them in the head. Hollywood has blinded most of dumb lunk america into believing you can be repeatedly knocked unconscious and wake up on your own without suffering any kind of brain damage. It is only one more reason the physically small and weak should be able to carry in the face of the ‘roided and meth’d up gun thugs running around these days.

Considered one of the toughest boxers to ever enter the ring, Oscar Bonnavena was beat to death with fists by a Las Vegas casino guard for reportedly going after his girlfriend. So everytime I hear “he was unarmed” I know I’m listening to adults who have the power of 4 year kids fighting on the playground, Randy

I’m glad this woman does not find it offensive. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with graphic violence in R rated movies. After all, the R rating means that kids under 17 are not supposed to be watching them. If they are, then it’s not Hollywood’s fault and adults should not have their viewing choices curtailed just because some parents don’t exercise good judgement. On the other hand, I don’t see why we need as much violence on the television. That is something that anyone can tune into and over the years, the shows have gotten more graphic and more violent. Again, no issues with it on the subscription movie channels, but it should not be on major network prime time.

As for violence having no impact – something to keep in mind. First of all, until 1968, any kid could walk into a hardware store and buy a gun and ammo. You could even order it from a catalog and have it delivered. The first multiple victim school shooting by a student did not happen until the late 1970’s. Sure, there has always been the isolated case where a kid (or adult) has an issue with another kid or a teacher and brings in a gun to shoot them, but the “let’s kill as many of our peers as we can” nonsense simply did not happen prior to the late 1970’s. Something in our culture changed as we entered the 1980’s and it was not increased access to guns. If its not the entertainment industry, then I’d be happy to listen to other ideas…

We have seen over and over again that over sexualization of women has lead to body image and self esteem issues and other problems with young girls and young women.

Seems to reason, that with boys, too much violence without strong parents leads to them to solving problems with violence.

In both regards, too much sex and too much violence cannot be healthy.

Today, thanks to many media outlets and channels, there is an almost 24/hr 365 day bombardment of both sex and violence. While not any one factor can be blamed, its the pile on effect that in IMHO opinion causes a lot of issues.

I am a computer geek and grew up around video games, I do not believe that video games are to blame, but if you let your kids play 8hrs+ a day, you have a problem. Same with TV and movies or even the internet. I am also a second assistant to a photographer, and it is scary what they force onto young models and ask them to do — often, the parents do not care because they figure a payday for their daughter means a payday for them so they exploit their own children in a legal way.

There is a such thing as too much! I do not know what the right balance should be, but there is too much right now coming from all directions.

I would love a “turn off all your media” for a week event so that parents and children actually have to connect or god forbid someone should be required to read book.

I agree with a no media week push but that would NEVER happen. The media and hollywood would never want to do without a week of revenue. It all comes down to money as you already know. Unfortunately as a society we have to deal with the after effects from bad parenting. There’s no clear solution without sever infringement on our rights as a whole.

Hundreds of millions of viewers have experienced collectively billions of instances of movie and video game violence for decades. If you include instances of radio drama violence, live drama violence, written violence, and actual state sponsored violence like war, probably billions of people have experienced trillions of instances of violence for thousands of years.

Yet violence is so comparatively rare to all of this. Maybe the human animal can simply tell the difference between fantasy and reality?

I had to look up who Betsy Sharkey was. I wonder if she has little kids and if she allows them to watch anything they want anytime they want. I’m against censorship myself, but the way she phrased her statement kinda made me feel that she likes watching violence a little more than most folks. That is just the “vibe” I got from reading what she said.

I don’t object to the content of movies. I can choose not to watch and I did away with my cable years ago. What I object too is the hollywood elite making big bucks off violence and guns and then turning around and preaching gun control. Sorta comes off as the porn industry preaching against casual sex.

I find it odd that some gun control advocates argue that violent movies and video games do not contribute to violent behavior, but in the next breath say that the real reason these “evil assault rifles” are so popular is just because of clever marketing by the manufacturers. That seems more than a little inconsistent.

I’m with Betsy. We should also have some amped-up, truly graphic, hyperviolent rape and sodomy scenes with nothing held back showing women of all ages being horribly beaten and savagely subjugated. Because, after all, we don’t want to silence the screams.

Ralph, there have been such films, and if people want to make them again, I think they should. Just like the 2A, the 1A was intended to be limitless and sacred. Moviegoers have a choice of which movies to see and which not to; violence in movies isn’t forced on anyone.

I personally believe there is the added aspect of deterrence. Those who are turned on by movie brutality and learn new sadistic technique from film already want to commit atrocities; sociopaths are a lost cause. But many people, who might otherwise consider murderous violence (especially the perceived quick, clean kill of a gunshot), might be dissuaded by seeing how messy, noisy, and terrifying violent human death is.

Maybe if fewer people died instantly and painlessly of gunshots in movies, fewer people would die of gunshots in real life. I don’t know, but I know that seeing the stark reality of things I thought I wanted has dissuaded me many a time.